


A Different Kind of Truth

by Lillian_Shepherd



Category: Garrison's Gorillas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 18:32:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Shepherd/pseuds/Lillian_Shepherd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are different ways of writing a report on a mission...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Kind of Truth

"While I was absent with Destine, my men were discovered by the Germans and three of them taken prisoner. During their escape, one of them overheard a conversation between Destine and the local Kommandant. Destine was giving him orders under the authority of the Gestapo—"

Garrison paused, staring down at the words he had just written with distaste. Consorting with criminals was plainly corrupting him. It was not that what he had written wasn't actually true but it missed out everything important – like where and how his horrible bunch had been captured. It didn't even mention the words 'jewels' and 'robbery.'

He was covering up for them.

Covering for himself, too, he had to admit. Much of the near disaster was his fault. He was the one who'd been suckered, trusted the information he'd been given, trusted Destine...

If Actor hadn't gone off to chase some woman, let himself get tempted into a robbery and, even worse, got the whole bunch caught, he'd've been heading back to England with false information about the German defences. People might have died because of it.

All round, it had been Actor who had pulled their irons out of the fire.

Accidentally.

"Warden?"

Garrison jumped.

As if his thoughts had summoned him, Actor was standing just a foot or so away, looking oddly uncomfortable.

So was Garrison, both at the fact that Actor had arrived without him hearing him, and the mode of address. He did wish they wouldn't call him 'Warden'. Though they were all known by their nicknames...

"I have come to apologise."

It took Garrison a few seconds and some effort to raise his jaw from the floor. It had become clear in the short time he had known Actor that the conman never apologised.

"For what, exactly?" he asked cautiously.

"Taking up Etienne's offer. It was a foolish thing to have done. I should have known better than to trust him."

No apology for the jewel robbery itself, Garrison noted grimly, or for going AWOL in Toulon in the first place.

"You nearly blew the mission," he stated.

"Yes." Actor hesitated, then added, "So did you."

He ought to have been angry, but Actor's candour had so disarmed him that all he could do was raise his eyebrows in a demand for an explanation.

"The others," Actor said, seating himself without being asked and stuffing tobacco into his pipe. "They were ready to run, in Toulon. They thought you meant it." Garrison waited patiently as he applied several matches to his pipe. It was only when he had got it glowing nicely that he went on: "None of them are quite sure when you are serious, when you are joking – or when you have simply lost your temper."

"I had provocation," Garrison pointed out.

"Indeed. That is why I apologised. My misjudgement."

Garrison cocked his head. "What made you so sure I'd come round?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Wheeler," Actor said, blowing a plume of smoke into the air and regarding it with satisfaction. "You gave him another chance after he tried to knife you – and you'd lost your temper then, too." He considered Garrison gravely. "Losing your temper is one thing: I would hate to be in your way if you lost control."

"I can't afford to do that. No-one can who's trained to kill with bare hands."

"Or a knife?"

Garrison took time to consider that. Conversations with Actor were never wholly simple and, while on the face of it the comment referred to his fight with Wheeler, he didn't believe Actor was thinking of that.

"You're worried about Chief," he said. "About the way he took a knife to Destin for a minor insult."

"If you hadn't been there he would have killed him. And you didn't see his face when Casino gave him back his switchblade in the cell. It was a man welcoming a lover."

"Nonsense," Garrison retorted, trying to kill the shiver the words had produced in him. "Those blades are Chief's tools. You don't like anyone messing with your make-up kits."

Actor leaned forward, his face suddenly very serious. "Warden, Chief isn't in control when he loses his temper, not in the same way you are. He can be stopped – you can stop him – but sometimes he can't stop himself."

It was an all-too-shrewd assessment and he sounded very sure. There could be a reason for that, in the answer to the question he had never dared ask, which had been haunting him since their first mission: did Chief kill Wheeler?

And even if he had asked, could he have believed Actor's answer, whatever it had been?

Chief's so young. And he's had such a bad deal in life. If I don't keep giving him an chance, who will?

Actor was right about losing his temper, too. He'd thought he was getting somewhere with his men, had started to trust them-

And they'd let him down.

No. They'd simply followed their instincts – and by doing so proved that he'd made no headway with them at all.

Except, just maybe, with Actor. Actor hadn't run, had fought to keep the team together, the way he should have done.

Why?

Maybe even Actor didn't know... though there seemed to be damned little he'd missed. That was a talent he ought to start using and, to do that, he was going to have to give as well as take.

"You're right," he said. "I did lose my temper. It won't happen again. Thanks for sticking with me... with the team."

"I won't put that in jeopardy again," Actor said. "You have my word on it."

It was the second time in less than an hour that Actor had astonished Garrison with words he never heard – never expected to hear – from him.

Against all the odds, he found himself believing them. "Accepted," he said. "Meanwhile, you'd better get off to the Doves and let me get on with covering your ass."

"Join us later?" Actor suggested.

"Maybe. Now beat it. Some of us have work to do."

Once the door had close behind Actor, Garrison picked up his pen and considered his report. There are different kinds of truth. This one was plainly going to become his.

He began to write.


End file.
